Saturday, September 08, 2012

Hundreds of Palestinian Authority Arabs have been assaulting a Jewish village in the Binyamin region since Saturday afternoon, Tatzpit reports.

Residents of the Jewish village of Esh Kodesh reported that the assault began when three men from the community were walking in one of the town’s vineyards on Saturday afternoon, during the Jewish Sabbath.

The men were attacked by a large Arab mob armed with clubs and sticks, residents said. The attackers apparently came from the nearby PA town of Kotzra.

A security team from Esh Kodesh was called to the scene, as were nearby IDF units. The responders encountered hundreds of PA men armed with rocks and other makeshift weapons, and were unable to stop the assault.

“Children in the village are crying,” community spokesman Aharon Katzuf told Tatzpit. “They can’t sleep because of the screams of ‘Yitbach al Yahud’ [Slaughter the Jews – ed.] and ‘Allahu Akbar.’”

As of Saturday night clashes continued. An IDF spokesperson said, “Security forces are at the scene, and the circumstances are being investigated.”

Are they going to provide proper security as well? An investigation isn't enough.

Certain facts about Bain Capital bear consideration (hat tip to Z!), and the GOP needs to bring out these facts.

Excerpt from the conclusion of "Look Who Parks Their Cash at Bain," an article dated August 31, 2012:

Is Bain really a gang of corporate buccaneers who plunder their ill-gotten gains by outsourcing, euthanizing feeble portfolio companies and giving cancer to the spouses of those whom they fired? If so, union bosses, government retirees, liberal foundations and elite universities thrive on the wages of Bain’s economic Darwinism.

If, however, these institutions relish the yields that Bain Capital generates by supporting start-ups and rescuing distressed companies, 80 percent of which have prospered, then this money is honest — and Team Obama isn’t.

The Haqqani network has long been a source of contention between the two countries. The US sees the group as a threat to NATO forces across the border, and a threat to Afghanistan's long-term stability as the US plans to withdraw next year. The network has been blamed for high-profile attacks, including one on the US Embassy in Kabul and the 2008 kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde.

Though Pakistan denies having close ties with the group, it has repeatedly dodged US pressure to carry out operations against the group. Analysts say that the Pakistani security establishment sees the Haqqani network as a key ally after US forces withdraw in 2014.

(Reuters) - If it were in a position to do so, Al Qaeda would use Pakistan's nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired on Sunday.

Pakistan has been battling al Qaeda's Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands.

"God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda's in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.

Meanwhile, the nation’s unemployment rate edged down to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent the month before. Often, the jobless rate dips even when employment growth is weak because the size of the labor force shrank as many Americans gave up looking for work.

Put today’s report in the context of last night’s vitriolic speeches, by Biden in particular, and you realize the complete disconnect this administration has to reality.

Democrats were having a very good convention. Michelle Obama made America fall in love, Bill Clinton made voters believe. On the final night Thursday, Senator John Kerry, of all people, delivered a stirring call to arms ("Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off than he was four years ago!"), and the oft-ridiculed Vice President Joe Biden went on only slightly too long, with a soft-spoken seriousness that rose above the political.

And then President Obama got up and just sort of didn't do anything special.

The president, that legendary orator, vaunted crowd-mover, well-known sweeper-away of audiences in general and political conventions in particular, gave a warmed-over rehash of his stump speech, right down to the exit music, Bruce Springsteen's "We Take Care of Our Own," that generally plays him out at campaign events.

The theme -- stop me if you've heard this one -- was hope. Obama began and ended by invoking it, giving the address the neat circularity of a high-schooler's five-paragraph essay. Eight years after his 2004 convention debut, he said, "that hope has been tested -- by the cost of war, by one of the worst economic crises in history, and by political gridlock that's left us wondering whether it's still possible to tackle the challenges of our time."

Was he going for lofty, getting the old hope-and-change band back together again to reawaken supporters' dormant affection? But no, the speech quickly detoured into some pedestrian tropes: the ritual bemoaning of the smallness of the campaign, followed by the Laying Out of the Choice Between Visions and the Gentle Mocking of Republican Insufficiency. ("Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!") Then ensued a laundry list of familiar proposals. There were wind and solar and clean coal; there were gains in math and reading scores. There were roads and bridges, tax reform, and fixing the deficit. There were even improvements to human rights in Burma and Libya and South Sudan.

For most of this, the bulk of the delegates on the floor were sitting down.

We know what we’re going to hear from the Democrats this week at their convention, and for the next nine weeks until the election. They clearly are having trouble making the case for their tenure, not even being able to articulate a consistent and coherent answer to the question of whether we’re better off than we were four years ago.

So they are going to have to somehow make the voters fear the unknown over their recent bitter economic experience. We’ve already heard the talking point from the president himself: that Romney is proposing that we go back to the bad, old, failed Bush policies that created the mess we’re currently in. In fact (like much of the Obama campaign strategy), it is a retread from 2008, when (on zero basis) the theme was that a McCain victory would be a continuation of the Bush administration.

Accepting this argument requires that two premises be acknowledged: First, that it was the Bush policies that created the mess; and second, that Romney’s proposals are a return to them. Both of these premises are false, but the Republicans have done a poor job of pushing back against either of them. If they don’t do a better one, there is some danger that they will actually gain traction with swing voters.

The first premise is not just false, but actually turns things on their head.

While a lot of the Bush policies (e.g., expansion of Medicare, an indifference to the deficit and spending, letting Ted Kennedy write the education bill, an attempt at amnesty for illegal immigrants with no serious attempt to control the border, taxpayer subsidies for energy companies, etc.) were regrettable, and in fact part of the reason that the Republicans lost the Congress in 2006 as a result of anger about them among his own base, they were not the cause of the downturn in 2007 and the financial meltdown of 2008. In particular, to attempt to claim that low tax rates caused an economic downturn is economic insanity.

I have yet to hear any Democrat explain how this can occur, yet they continue to claim that the Bush “tax cuts” (which were not tax cuts, but relative tax increases resulting from the economic growth created by the lowered rates) are one of the causes of our current problems.

But it’s not enough to simply defend against the nonsense that Bush policies created our current problems. The Republicans need to go on the offensive and take back control of the narrative with the truth — that the downturn occurred as a result of policies primarily promulgated by the Democrats.

The real cause of the current mess (ignoring the upcoming fiscal disaster caused by uncontrolled spending and deficits) was the housing boom and bust. The boom was caused by policies going back decades to encourage people to buy houses they couldn’t afford and to coerce and extort banks to lend them the money to do so. While this had some support from Republicans, it was a policy primarily driven by Democrats.

OBAMA AND THE LEFT WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THAT DEREGULATION CAUSED THE CRASH.

AS IF GOP POLICIES AND BY EXTENSION MITT ROMNEY CAUSED A PHONY AND DOOMED GILDED AGE. HERE'S A RECENT COVER FROM THE SOCIALIST RAG "THE NATION":

THIS IS WHY THEY CHOSE THE SLOGAN "FORWARD". IT HIGHLIGHTS THE IDEA THAT VOTING GOP IS GOING BACKWARDS TO THE CRASH AND WHAT CAUSED IT.

THIS IS BULLS*IT. TOTAL EFFING DECEITFUL PROPAGANDA.

DEMOCRAT AND LIBERAL REGULATIONS AND NOT REPUBLICAN AND CONSERVATIVE DEREGULATION CAUSED THE CRASH.

THAT'S RIGHT.

WHAT INFLATED THE BUBBLE THAT LED TO THE CRASH WERE THE REGULATIONS ON THE BANKING INDUSTRY THAT FORCED THEM TO UNDERWRITE SUB-PRIME AND ALT-A LOANS AND THE REGULATIONS THAT PERMITTED FANNIE MAE TO BUNDLE THEM AND CREATE DERIVATIVES WITH THE IMPLIED GUARANTEE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

WITHOUT THOSE REGULATIONS AND THE MALFEASANCE AT FANNIE MAE (A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF THE LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT), THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO BUBBLE AND VERY VERY VERY FEW BAD LOANS ISSUED TO PEOPLE WHO REALLY DIDN'T DESERVE THEM - AND NO CRASH.

THE POLICIES OF OBAMA AND REID AND PELOSI AND DODD AND FRANK AND GEITHNER AND CARTER ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BUBBLE AND CRASH, NOT GOP POLICIES.

WHO A POLITICIAN SEES AS NEEDFUL OF GOVERNMENT PROTECTION REVEALS A LOT MORE.

AFTER ALL - AS OUR FOUNDERS WROTE, OUR RIGHTS COME FROM G-D; THEY PRIMARILY FORMED OUR GOVERNMENT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS.

WHAT RIGHTS DOES THE DEMOCRAT PARTY SEE AS MOST UNDER THREAT?

OBAMA'S CONVENTION REVEALS ONCE AGAIN THAT LEFT IS MOST READY TO DO BATTLE TO PROTECT "ABORTION RIGHTS", "GAY MARRIAGE RIGHTS" AND THE RIGHTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS.

(IN FACT, FROM THE WAY THEY'VE BEEN PARADING FLUKE AND HER COMRADES, ONE CAN SAY THAT THE LEFT ADORES ABORTION THE WAY THE CANAANITES ADORED MOLOCH - TO THE SAME EFFECT.)

WHAT IS MORE, THE DEMOCRATS FEEL THAT HEALTHCARE IS A RIGHT - AS IF ONE PERSON HAD THE RIGHT TO A SERVICE PROVIDED BY ANOTHER, SOMETHING THAT IS ANTAGONISTIC TO THE VERY ESSENCE OF UR CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.

THE GOP SEES THE FETUS FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS: A HUMAN.

AND THE GOP WANTS THIS HUMAN PROTECTED.

MORE FETUSES ARE KILLED EVERY YEAR THAN GAYS, MUSLIMS, OR ILLEGAL ALIENS TO THE POWER OF TEN.

SERIOUSLY: THE COMMENT FROM MATTHEWS SHOWS HOW OUT OF TOUCH AND IMMORAL THE DEMOCRATS ARE.

AND - BY SAYING CLINTON COULD SEDUCE A MARTIAN AND MAKING IT ABOUT CLINTON'S COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND NOT SUBSTANCE - IT TELLINGLY REVEALS THAT EVEN A-HOLES LIKE MATTHEWS ARE SUCKERS FOR ORATORY AND CHARISMA.NO SURPRISE:LEFTISTS HAVE ALWAYS FALLEN FOR THE CULT OF PERSONALITY.WHY?SIMPLE:LEFTISTS DESIRE A SYSTEM OF GOVERNANCE IN WHICH THE ELITE MAKE THE "CORRECT" DECISIONS "FOR THE COMMON GOOD".AND THE CHAIRMAN OF THE ELITE IS THEREFORE IDOLIZED - WHETHER IT'S MAO OR STALIN OR LENIN OR HITLER OF MUSSOLINI AND POL POT OR CASTRO OR KIM IL SUNG AND HIS KIDDIES.SO-CALLED "RIGHT-WINGERS" ARE FOLKS WHO THINK A LIMITED GOVERNMENT AND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST SYSTEM AND THEREFORE WE DON'T WORSHIP OUR LEADERS IRRATIONALLY AS LEFTISTS MUST.MATTHEWS WORSHIPS CLINTON AND OBAMA.DON'T YOU BE DUPED!I BET THAT IF YOU LOVE DEMOCRACY AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT, THEN YOU WON'T BE!

WHY MIGHT SO MANY INDEPENDENTS AND REPUBLICANS LIKE HIM?SIMPLE:HE COMPROMISED AND ADMITTED THE ERA OF BIG GOVERNMENT WAS OVER.AND INDEPENDENTS AND REPUBLICANS ARE NOSTALGIC FOR DEMOCRATS WHO BELIEVE THAT.

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Hardline Muslim clerics. Young people who feel marginalized. Suspicions that police are responsible for the killings and forced disappearances of extremists.

These elements created a combustible mixture that exploded into rioting last week after Aboud Rogo Mohammed, a Muslim preacher accused of links to an Islamist insurgent group in neighboring Somalia, was riddled with bullets as he drove his wife to a hospital for a checkup. Observers say these events underscore growing fundamentalism in Mombasa, dividing people in a city established centuries ago by Muslim traders from the Arabian peninsula, now home to many people of Arab descent and Somalis.

Mohammed had been jailed for the December 2002 killing of 13 people in a bomb attack of an Israeli-owned hotel on the Kenyan coast and the attempted downing of a jetliner packed with Israeli tourists. He was charged with murder but was acquitted in a trial.

Hassan Omar Hassan, a former deputy head of the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, knew Mohammed, and said the cleric became more outspoken and adopted a hardline stance after he emerged from prison.

“It was at that point that I started to hear Mohammed, after imprisonment, becoming more and more audacious. It appears when he was imprisoned he overcame the fear of adversity,” Hassan said. “He started preaching on international jihad, and subscribed broad ideologies of jihad.” [...]

Police said Mohammed had belonged to a terror cell affiliated with al-Shabab that was planning to bomb Kenyan targets over Christmas. Al-Shabab is an Islamist insurgent group in Somalia that has executed people by stoning and chopped off limbs of suspected thieves. Kenyan troops are among the African Union forces backing the Somali government, and are on the verge of attacking al-Shabab’s last stronghold, the Somali seaside city of Kismayo.

Well it's clear he was asking for whatever he got. Now he can face the wrath of God's Law.

SERIOUSLY: THE COMMENT FROM MATTHEWS SHOWS HOW OUT OF TOUCH AND IMMORAL THE DEMOCRATS ARE.

AND - BY SAYING CLINTON COULD SEDUCE A MARTIAN AND MAKING IT ABOUT CLINTON'S COMMUNICATION SKILLS AND NOT SUBSTANCE - IT TELLINGLY REVEALS THAT EVEN A-HOLES LIKE MATTHEWS ARE SUCKERS FOR ORATORY AND CHARISMA.

Who is Simon Baz? An Arab man living in America, who was a child when he and his family watched the World Trade Center towers fall on September 11th, 2001, and who has felt the pain of being an Arab in America ever since. Well, no, now he feels the pain of being a car thief who completely ripped off the wrong van. Yeah, he’s no boy scout, but his heart is in the right place. By the way, why did I say wrong van? Because there was a bomb in it, and why is he a good person? Because he makes it a point to send that bomb on a one way trip to a place with no collateral damage once he discovered it. Unfortunately, again, Arab in America, Baz winds up in Gitmo pretty much instantly. Because an Arab guy blowing something up instantly means terrorist.

I thought that was "Muslim guy". Why can't they get their facts straight? It's just like how in the articles I looked at previously, Geoff Johns and the interviewers seem to think "Muslim" and "Arab" are completely interchangeable.

There is some straight forward racial profiling done for his interrogation, and honestly, as much as I hate to say it…yeah, this is what would really happen. His honesty would be ignored in favor of trying to label him an extremist in an excuse to interrogate him. I stress honesty, by the way, he holds nothing back and answers every single question they ask him, only to have his answers ignored in favor of painting him as a mad bomber working with more bad bombers. It also makes for a great moment where, with nothing to lose, Baz fights back and becomes worthy of the ring that we’ve all known he was getting for a good while now. Unfortunately, everyone who really shouldn’t known about this event happens to know, which means that governments, secret governments, and Justice League’s all known about the suspected terrorist who just got the most powerful weapon in the universe.

It sounds like pretty much what we could expect, a potential assault on Gitmo, and more so an attack on racial profiling. There's more told in at least one comment written in reply on the page itself:

Here's my problem with the issue. While the actions of the feds in are terrible it's not hard to understand why they wouldn't believe him. I mean if you didn't actually see the story unfold there is no way anyone would believe his story. You, a Muslim American, just happen to steal a van that has a bomb in it. Of all the terrible luck. Then you drive it to your old place of work you were fired from recently and blow the place up. I mean really who would believe that? Obviously the feds are supposed to look unreasonable but really they really only become unreasonable when they start with the torture because the truth is so unbelievable.

Also, wouldn't it have better to not tie the first Muslim green lantern to a bombing or being a car thief. Even though it wasn't his fault he's still connected. What if he was just a regular guy with a regular job that had the courage to survive discrimination in the wake of 9/11? Why make him a criminal that accidentally bombs a building?

The story as described certainly is ludicrous, if he drives the van onto the same property of a company he used to work for and totals the place, which is little different from what he allegedly was trying to prevent. If this is accurate, then "Baz" is guilty of destroying private property and trespassing, to say nothing of potentially jeopardizing other people's lives. I'm sure there's plenty of empty lots on the outskirts of Detroit he could've driven the van to if he wanted to keep it from endangering innocent lives (assuming it wasn't a time bomb hidden in the van), or he could've just called out to everyone to run for cover since there was a bomb in the van and called the police and urged them to cordon off the area it was in and send the squad to disarm it. The story structure certainly is bizarre and ill-advised.

Interestingly enough, there's one more story Johns recently put in Aquaman #7 that one could figure takes a pro-Islamic stance involving a Muslim woman who was killed off at the hands of Black Manta named Kahina the Seer:

As we see here, Black Manta offs Kahina in an unsurprisingly vicious manner for a story written by a writer as pretentious as Johns. And what easily makes this story an intellect-insulter is that - depending on how you view it - it technically makes the black man look like the real threat here (he even threatens to terminate her family), and the Islamist the one to be sorry for. In other words, Johns came up with a really clever piece of subtle propaganda, whether he knew it or not.

An Arab protagonist seems timely since there is this swirl of social issues that Muslims in post 9/11 America have to deal with.

True. As fantastic as the concept of “Green Lantern” is of an intergalactic police force, the comic has had a history of grounding in the now and dealing with modern characters and concepts and Simon Baz is that. I wanted to create a character that everyday Americans have to deal with.

When 9/11 hit, he was 10-years-old. His family was devastated, just like every other American. He’s grown up in that world. It’s just part of the daily life, the new normal.

The fact that the color green has a historical connection with Islam is probably coincidental but will religion play any part in future stories?

The background is in the DNA of who he is but it doesn’t define who he is. It’s more about a compelling character than anything else.

But as the Pulse review/reader comment signals, all the signs are that it will, certainly in the story setup. It's an insult to the intellect as it pulls what's surely a classic gimmick by now, to make Islamists look throughly "misunderstood" (and who knows if we'll ever learn who the villain was who actually built the bomb he disposed of?), and the authorities look completely like the baddies. (And was Naser Abdo "fighting back" when he injured a county jailer's arm?) Which is truly offensive, and smells of an anti-authoritarian bias too. And Islam is hardly a "modern" concept if this is what it's going to stoop to.

At almost the last minute, the Democrats have canceled Thursday night's big football stadium event featuring President Barack Obama's re-nomination acceptance speech. Bad weather forecast, they say. Going indoors to the nearby basketball/hockey arena. But the ceiling there is filled with exactly none of the thousands of red, white and blue balloons that TV viewers expect to be dropping as a convention finale.

Well, it looks like overrated comics writer Johns continues to show just how mindless he's become, as he now turns to pandering in a politicized way. First, here's what they tell about what he's done to Hal Jordan on the Dixonverse:

Now DC has killed Hal Jordan off (Sinestro too) in another cheap publicity stunt. Yes, I'm sure they'll bring him back in a year or two (maybe), but it's still the same hackish, no-talent stunt we've come to expect from Dilapidated Comics. And now we've made the Guardians a villainish conspiracy theory, and Hal's replacement is an Arab guy that carries a .45 along with a power ring. Oh, and wears a luchador mask (DC's website's top 5 reasons for loving the Green Lantern universe: #2, Diversity! No, I'm not kidding. [link]). Behold, Green Lantern is now Space Punisher!. Anyone want to take bets on when the first nasty crack about Israel is written into his dialogue?

Baz's story begins in a standalone "zero issue" available Wednesday that's part of a companywide effort to fill in the gaps or tell the origins of a character or team. Johns has no plans for Baz to fade into the background — the character in February is bound for the Justice League of America, one of DC's premier super team books, to fight alongside Green Arrow, Catwoman and Hawkman.

Johns said he took economic as well as ethnic cues for the character from his native Detroit area, with Baz resorting to stealing cars after being laid off from his automotive engineering job. He steals the wrong car, which inadvertently steers him into a terrorism probe and, eventually, an unexpected call to join the universe's galactic police force.

The olive-skinned, burly Baz hails from Dearborn, the hometown of Henry Ford and the capital of Arab America. His story begins at 10 years old, when he and the rest of his Muslim family watch their television in horror as airplanes fly into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Events unfold from there as U.S. Arabs and Muslims find themselves falling under intense suspicion and ostracism in the days, months and years following the attacks.

"Obviously, it's affecting everybody," said Johns, who grew up in nearby suburbs in a Lebanese Christian household and got into comics when he discovered his uncle's old collection in his Arab grandmother's attic. "One of the things I really wanted to show was its effect on Simon and his family in a very negative way."

Now that's really strange that someone from a background like Johns', instead of drawing on his own religious background, prefers to base it on a religion that views his own as inferior. It's almost like he's saying his own beliefs are inferior. And it certainly reeks of dhimmitude and a disinterest in refuting the stereotype that all Arabs are Muslims. Given what the story structure is like, it's clear that there's little chance Baz will ever be seen dealing with crimes involving Muslims persecuting Christians, Jews, women, or even gays and lesbians. Nor will he be coming to the aid of targets ofhonor killings, or even groups like 9-11 Families for a Safe America who still have to fight to get the memorials dedicated to the real victims completed.

Johns, who also has written stories starring Superman, The Flash and Teen Titans, said going diverse only works if there's a good story, and he believes he found that with Baz. But don't mistake him for a hero in the beginning: Baz disappoints both devout Muslims — his forearm tattoo that reads "courage" in Arabic is considered "haram," or religiously forbidden — and broader society by turning to a life of crime.

"He's not a perfect character. He's obviously made some mistakes in his life, but that makes him more compelling and relatable," he said. "Hopefully (it's) a compelling character regardless of culture or ethnic background. ... But I think it's great to have an Arab-American superhero. This was opportunity and a chance to really go for it."

An Arab, yes, but a Muslim, no. One could wonder just what kind of reception a character with religious beliefs like Baz would give to Alan Scott now that he's been turned homosexual, and Chuck Dixon himself asked, "Will the Muslim Lantern use his gun to kill Alan Scott?" I don't think many Muslims in real life would like Scott's new state either.

Johns also sees the debut of Baz as a chance to reconnect with people in his home state: He's scheduled to visit Dearborn this weekend for events related to the release that include a signing Friday at a comic book store and a free presentation Saturday on his career and characters at the Arab American National Museum. He worked with museum staff to make sure he got certain details right about his character and the Arab-Muslim community.

Oh, I'll bet he did, with a lot of taqqiya (deception) included in the uncreative input.

"It doesn't completely define the character but it shapes the character," he said. "My biggest hope is that people embrace it and understand what we're trying to do."

Oh we understand alright; he's trying to "exonerate" the Religion of Peace, and is basically - and naively - aiding victimology. This is the clearest form of politicized storytelling he's come up with ever since he wrote Avengers: Red Zone a decade ago, the padded-out story where Captain America found a government lab around Mt. Rushmore that released toxic gases and said, "this wasn't the work of any terrorist. This was from us." And where Red Skull claims Black Panther was behind the development. And where two soldiers on board an airship semi-threatened Vision to scram with an injured child because "we're loaded to capacity. Any more weight and we'll drop" even as the space they were in was practically empty.

DC Comics is unveiling its newest super hero Wednesday — a Muslim Arab-American being interrogated by Homeland Security when he’s fitted for the cosmic powered ring.

Meet Simon Baz of Dearborn, Mich., who grew up dealing with prejudice in a post 9/11 America.

This sounds almost like a story by Chris Roberson DC was planning to run in Superman last year but scrapped because it was very possibly offensive to Americans; it could've depicted them in very degrading lights. Why wouldn't it be surprising if the same happens here?

The original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, a character first introduced in the 1940, was reimagined earlier this year as a homosexual hero in another series.

“At this point, after making Alan Scott gay — that was sort of the big one. Other than a few idiots who somehow felt it was a betrayal, there doesn’t seem to be many people offended,” says Harry Knowles, founder of Ain’t It Cool News, a geek culture news website.

Oh, but there are, and maybe DC doesn't think so, but as even Chuck Dixon implied, Muslims could be too!

The galling political dhimmitude aside, what's also sad here is how, even if Hal Jordan hasn't been killed off, he's still been victimized once again by publicity stunt tactics for the sake of introducing a Kyle Rayner 2.0 and what Johns is doing to the Guardians is despicable too. All these current steps explain perfectly why I shunned his work several years ago after he desecrated the Flash with repellant violence and made things worse after he killed off the infant whose mother he'd first rubbed out in Rogues Revenge. Just like James Robinson, he too is, in his own way, getting lost in a forest of political correctness.

For Jerusalem, the new platform has been brought into line with the Obama administration’s policy of not recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and supporting its division. Jerusalem is unmentioned in the 2012 document, whereas the 2008 and 2004 Democratic Party platforms declared “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel…It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.” The Obama administration’s refusal to recognize Jerusalem has been a point of significant controversy in recent months.

On the issue of Palestinian refugees, the new document has removed language from the 2004 and 2008 platforms specifying that Palestinian “refugees” should be settled in a future Palestinian state, not in Israel.

The 2004 platform: “The creation of a Palestinian state should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel.”

The 2008 platform: The peace process “should resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle there, rather than in Israel.”

The 2012 platform contains no language on the matter.

Previously, Obama has incorporated the Palestinian positions on Jerusalem and borders into his administration’s policies. It appears that with his party’s new platform, he is also doing so with refugees.

Gone as well is the language from 2008 on the terrorist group Hamas, which currently controls the Gaza Strip. That platform declared, “The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements.”

The 2012 platform contains no mention of Hamas.

Previous platforms also contained promises to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” in the region. The 2008 platform, for example, spoke of a “commitment which requires us to ensure that Israel retains a qualitative edge for its national security and its right to self-defense.” The 2012 platform mentions only that “[t]he administration has also worked to ensure Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region,” with no commitment to doing so in the future.

“This mistake has to be rectified by us, Hungarians!” wrote one. “Today, I am ashamed of being a Hungarian,” wrote another. “I apologize to all Armenians, and particularly to the family of Gurgen Margaryan,” said a third.

They echoed the sentiments of tens of thousands of Hungarians outraged by their government’s decision to extradite Margaryan’s murderer, Ramil Safarov, to his home country Azerbaijan, where he received a hero’s welcome, was pardoned, and promoted.

In 2004, Safarov murdered Margaryan, an Armenian lieutenant, in Hungary with an axe, while the latter was asleep. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Politicians, religious leaders, and activists in Hungary commented on the extradition, apologizing to Armenians and criticizing the extradition. [...]

Various newspapers and blogs published articles denouncing the Hungarian government.

Demonstrations are planned for early this week in front of the Ministry of Justice and the Parliament of Hungary to express outrage at the decision to extradite Safarov.

Thousands of Hungarians joined Facebook groups apologizing for their government’s action. One such group, called “Sorry, Armenia,” had close to 8,000 “Likes” as of Sept. 2.

This is a very amazing development, and the citizenry of Hungary who recognize the evils involved here should be commended for speaking up. I sure hope they feel the same way about any discrimination and cowardice their government's committed against Israel too, and with any luck, we'll learn to that effect in the future.

If the government of Hungary wants to apologize for their offensive cowardice, they should sever all contacts with Azerbaijan and stop trade with them too. A country that rewards jihadism as Azerbaijan's done needs to be shunned like the lepers they are.

Some good news in Jerusalem as Irving Moskowitz has managed to get some Muslims who were living on property he'd purchased removed on the Mount of Olives:

Right-wing activists sealed off one room in the Hamdallah family home in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras el-Amud on Sunday, the first step in an attempt to force the family out of their home in order to build an expansion to the Jewish compound of Ma’aleh Hazeitim.

There was no violence on Sunday as the three people who lived in the room – Ahmed Hamdallah, his wife and two-year-old son – had previously relocated to a rented apartment in Silwan ahead of the eviction. On Sunday morning, right-wing activists, guarded by a private security detail, nailed metal sheeting over the doorway and used barbed wire to prevent anyone from entering the room where they had lived. Seventeen members of the Hamdallah family live in rest of the house.

The eviction was the legal result of a 17-year-long court battle between the Hamdallah family and American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, who has purchased hundreds of dunams of Jewish apartments in east Jerusalem and the Old City for development. Ten dunans equals 1 hectare.

The land containing the Ma’aleh Hazeitim compound and the Hamdallah family home originally belonged to the Chabad Kollel, who purchased it in 1886 from the Ottomans for use as a cemetery.

In 1948, the kollel lost the land when Jordan controlled east Jerusalem. Jordanians gave the land to the local mukhtar (community leader), who sold it to the Hamdallah family. The Hamdallah family built a home there and moved in 1952.

Following the 1967 Six Day War, the kollel mounted a successful legal campaign to reclaim the land. The courts agreed with its claim and the ownership reverted back to the Chabad Kollel.

In 1992, the kollel sold the land to Moskowitz, who developed the Ma’aleh Hazeitim complex with the support of the Ateret Cohanim Foundation.

Ateret Cohanim has cooperated with Moskowitz on a number of different Jewish housing projects, and supports Jews living in the Old City's Muslim Quarter as well as Silwan.

Ma’aleh Hazeitim is one of the largest Jewish compounds in predominantly Arab neighborhoods, with 110 apartment units, including penthouses that sell for more than NIS 7 million.

Starting in 1995, Moskowitz mounted a number of legal attempts to evacuate the entire Hamdallah family from their home. The case went all the way to the High Court of Justice, and on July 21, 2005, Judge Yitzhak Shimoni accepted the Hamdallah family’s claim that they had purchased the land and ruled they could stay in the original building. However, he ruled that the family could be evicted from any additions made to the building, including one room in the main house and two sheds in the corners of the property.

After this ruling, Moskowitz launched another legal campaign in order to evict the family from this room and the courtyard of the property, claiming these were additions to the original building. Three weeks ago, the Jerusalem District Court ruled that Moskowitz could evict the family in that room after September 1.

The current plan is to build a fence through the Hamdallah’s courtyard that leads to the one room, and possibly have a Jewish family move into it.

A leftard's been trying to distort things and blame the wrong side:

“The idea is not just the eviction, it is another step in harassing the family so they won’t want to stay there,” said Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher with Ir Amim, a left-wing activist group. Tatarsky explained that hounding the family is Moskowitz’s only option as the legal procedures have failed. “At any moment, this could blow up,” he said.

“It’s a very sensitive area where they’re doing things, and they could end with violence.”

Because for him, jihad is perfectly legit, that's why. He obviously won't do anything on his part to urge local Muslims not to riot if they do, and should that happen, he'll likely even condone it. By the way, why's he saying legal options failed when they clearly succeeded?

Ma’aleh Hazeitim resident Aryeh King, who is involved in other Jewish residential projects in east Jerusalem with his organization Israel Land Fund, expressed optimism on Sunday that his apartment compound will eventually expand into the Hamdallah’s property. The plan is to build dozens of additional units for Jewish families.

“We are not going to give up on what belongs to us,” he said. He highlighted the fact that the courts have clearly awarded ownership of the land to Moskowitz, even though the home has special legal status, as proof that the Jewish ownership will eventually prevail.

Members of the Hamdallah family watched calmly on Sunday as right-wing activists cleared out debris from the room and brought bales of barbed wire to prevent entry.

The right-wing activists cannot build a fence through the courtyard until they receive the proper permit from the municipality, after the Ir Amim organization filed a complaint with the city’s building code enforcement department on Sunday afternoon.

Members of the family said the action was not a surprise and they had been informed a few weeks ago. Khaled Hamdallah, Ahmed’s brother and the patriarch of the family, said they did not resist because their lawyer for more than a decade, Shlomo Lecker, told them there was “nothing they could do.”

Hamdallah said his brother already moved out all of his belongings and did not even show up the morning of the eviction to avoid a confrontation.

A small group of leftwing activists opposed to the eviction was on the scene but did not halt the work to seal off the room.

“For decades they’ve been coming slowly,” said Malik Jaber, 20, a cousin of the Hamdallah family. “We have no doubt that in 20 years they’re going to take this entire area.”

Retake it, you mean. And I'm glad if he respects that, and that the leftists there acted respectably.